Purim 2040

The dates

Purim falls on 14 Adar and marks the rescue of the Jews of the Persian empire from a decree of annihilation, as the Book of Esther tells it. It is the loudest festival in the Hebrew calendar: the scroll is read in a synagogue full of costumed children and noisemakers, food is sent to neighbours, money is given to the poor, and the day ends in a long meal. It is also the least expected festival in the calendar: the story behind it takes place entirely in exile, inside a foreign king's palace, and God is not mentioned in it once.

The plot, briefly

The Book of Esther is set in Shushan, capital of the kingdom of Ahasuerus, a king who rules "from India to Ethiopia" and whose decisions are mostly taken at banquets. Queen Vashti is removed, and Esther is chosen in her place, a Jewish orphan raised by her cousin Mordechai, who does not tell the palace where she comes from.

Haman, the king's senior minister, is offended by Mordechai's refusal to bow to him, and decides to take it out not on the man but on his entire people. He buys from the king the right to destroy the Jews of the kingdom, and picks the date by casting a lot: "they cast *pur*, that is the lot, before Haman, from day to day and from month to month, to the twelfth month, the month of Adar" ¹. That lot is also what gave the festival its name.

From there the story reverses itself step by step: Mordechai uncovers a plot against the king and is forgotten, the king remembers him during a sleepless night, Esther invites Haman to two banquets and only at the second one says who she is, and the gallows Haman prepared for Mordechai is used on Haman himself. The Jews are given leave to defend themselves, and on the day after the fighting, 14 Adar, they rest. That day of rest is the festival.

What the scroll itself says

Purim is a rabbinic festival (it is not commanded in the Torah) but unlike Chanukah it has a biblical book of its own, and that book states plainly what to do on the day. Esther explains the name: "therefore they called these days Purim, after the name of *pur*" ². The festival is named, in other words, for Haman's lot: not for the rescue, but for the instrument that picked the date of the decree.

The four observances of the day are set out in a single verse: these are to be days of "feasting and gladness, and of sending portions one to another, and gifts to the poor" ³. The meal, the parcels sent to friends and the money given to the needy all come from there; the public reading of the scroll was added later by the sages.

The distinction inside that verse matters. Sending portions is between friends; gifts to the poor go to people who have nothing. They are two separate obligations, and they are easy to confuse.

What people actually do

Reading the Megillah. Twice: on the eve of the festival and again in the morning. It is customary to make noise every time Haman's name is read, which is probably the only occasion in the year when noise in a synagogue is deliberate.

Mishloach manot. At least two portions of ready-to-eat food are sent to at least one person. In practice this becomes trays circulating between neighbours all day, and an informal design competition.

Gifts to the poor. Money is given to at least two people in need, on the day itself. Maimonides singles this out as the weightiest of the four: “it is better for a person to give more gifts to the poor than to spend more on his own meal and on portions for his friends, for there is no greater or more splendid joy than gladdening the hearts of the poor, the orphans, the widows and the strangers” ⁴.

The meal. A large meal eaten on the day itself, usually in the afternoon, sometimes running well into the evening.

Costumes. The custom most associated with the festival is in fact relatively late. Writing in the sixteenth century, Rema refers to “the practice of wearing masks on Purim” and rules that there is nothing forbidden in it “since the intent is nothing but merriment” ⁵.

Hamantaschen and the Fast of Esther. The triangular pastry filled with poppy seed or chocolate is an Ashkenazi custom that travelled everywhere. On the day before, 13 Adar, it is customary to fast from dawn until nightfall: the Fast of Esther, recalling the fast Esther called before she went in to the king.

“Who knows whether for such a time as this”

Once the decree is sealed, Mordechai sends word to Esther asking her to go to the king and plead for her people. Esther refuses at first, for an entirely reasonable reason: anyone who enters the king's presence uncalled is put to death, and she has not been called for thirty days. Mordechai's reply is perhaps the best-known sentence in the book: if you keep silent now, relief will come to the Jews from somewhere else, and you and your father's house will be lost, "and who knows whether it was for such a time as this that you attained royalty" ⁶.

It is not a promise and it is not a threat. It is a question. Mordechai does not tell Esther that she was chosen for this; he offers her the possibility that she was, and leaves the decision with her. She makes it, asking that the Jews fast for three days, and closing the argument with a line of her own: "and if I perish, I perish."

It is also the moment the story begins to invert. From here on everything Haman plans happens, only not to him.

The scroll in which everything is hidden

Esther is the only book in the Hebrew Bible with no name of God in it. There is no prophecy, no open miracle, and no moment where anyone explains what is going on. There is only a chain of coincidences that add up, in hindsight, to one picture.

The sages noticed, and hung the idea on the name itself. The Talmud asks what sounds like a riddle (where is Esther hinted at in the Torah?) and answers with a verse from Deuteronomy, "and I will surely hide my face" ⁷. The pun is between *Ester* and *hastir*, to hide: the book named for her is the book in which the face is concealed.

That is also the logic behind the costumes and the drinking. Purim is the day on which nothing appears as it is: the queen does not say who she is, the enemy ends up leading his rival through the streets, and the date chosen for destruction becomes a date for a feast. Rava's puzzling instruction, that a person should drink on Purim until he can no longer tell "cursed be Haman" and "blessed be Mordechai" ⁸, belongs to the same day: one day a year on which the line between things is deliberately blurred. Worth knowing that the Talmud itself moves straight on to a story of a Purim meal that went badly wrong, and most later authorities read that as a strong brake on the rule.

Common questions about Purim

When is Purim?
Purim falls on 14 Adar, and in a Hebrew leap year on 14 Adar II. On the civil calendar that is usually March, occasionally late February. This year it falls on 28/2/40.

When is Purim in Jerusalem?
One day later. In Jerusalem and in other cities walled since the days of Joshua, Purim is kept on 15 Adar, a day called Shushan Purim, after Shushan itself, where the fighting continued an extra day. This year Shushan Purim falls on 29/2/40.

How long does Purim last?
One day. Somebody in Jerusalem keeps the 15th instead of the 14th, not both. In years when 15 Adar falls on a Sabbath, Jerusalem's Purim is spread across three days, an arrangement known as Purim Meshulash: "threefold Purim".

When is the eve of Purim?
On 13 Adar, which is also the Fast of Esther. The fast runs from dawn until nightfall, and the Megillah is read that same evening once it ends.

Why is Purim on a different date every year?
Because of the leap month. In a Hebrew leap year a second month of Adar is inserted and Purim moves to it, which is why the civil date can shift by as much as a month between one year and the next.

Purim on the calendar: Hebrew and civil dates together

The grid at the top of this page shows Purim inside the month it falls in, with the Hebrew date and the civil date on every day. You can see at a glance which civil date carries 14 Adar in the year selected and which weekday it lands on, something that matters in practice, since it determines when school parties and the school break fall. Alongside the 14th the grid shows 13 Adar, the Fast of Esther, and 15 Adar, Shushan Purim in Jerusalem. In a leap year Adar I and Adar II appear separately, so it is easy to see which of the two carries the festival.
The button above the grid prints it to a single page, portrait or landscape, without the navigation or this text.

• Every festival of the year at a glance: the annual holidays calendar
• The full printable calendar: home page
• The Hebrew month it falls in: Adar

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• Printable calendar for February 2040
• The Hebrew month of Adar 5800
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• Printable 2026 Jewish calendar with holidays